paulagua's Identifications

Juan Fernandez Firecrown
Isla Robinson Crusoe,
Juan Fernandez Islands, Chile
9 - 11 February 2000

This one of the most remote hummingbirds in the world, found only one one small island, 350 miles off the coast of Chile. Just getting there is quite an adventure. This species is critically endangered. Three of the shots show it feeding on the "cabbage tree" (Dendroseris litoralis) which likewise is a critically endangered species.

There is some information on this species at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Fern%C3%A1ndez_Firecrown
if you are interested. The drawning of the female in the Wikipedia article is a little more fancy than they actually look. I'll add two shots of the female as the 5th and 6th images here. They are very different from the male and until 60 or so years ago people thought they were two different species. This same information is available by clicking on the species name from iNat.

The following is something I wrote on this bird about 10 years ago for my web site. "About 350 miles west of the coast of Chile there is a small group of Islands called the Juan Fernandez Islands. One of these islands is about 40 square miles of rugged, rocky landscape and is known as Isla Robinson Crusoe. It was on this island where Alexander Selkirk was marooned in the early 1700s. His story was later the basis for the novel "Robinson Crusoe" by Daniel Defoe. Just getting to the island is quite an accomplishment and perhaps I will add a story about that at a later time. For the ornithologist, one of the most interesting things about Isla Robinson Crusoe is its endemic and endangered hummingbird, the Juan Fernandez Firecrown. This spectacular hummingbird occurs no where else on earth. It is a large hummingbird, about five inches long and is thought to number only about 200-500 individuals. The bird can be fairly common in the only town on the island, San Juan Bautista where it feeds on native and introduced flowering plants. This is one of the most attractive hummingbirds I've ever seen; the male is brick red with green wings and a crown that glows emerald green to ruby red depending upon the angle of the light. I visited this island for three days in February, 2000. My own web page on this bird is at:
http://www.greglasley.net/jffire.html